Don’t get too excited when you see the word “free” listed as the cost for the Namco Games Portal iPhone app in the iTunes Store, because free doesn’t buy much.
The Games Portal is actually just a smaller Namco-specific app store. It lists all of the company’s iPhone game apps and gives you a little information about them, however, it fails to list their prices. When you tap a game you might be interested in, you’re redirected to the app store for the rude awakening of what you’ll be expected to pay for what are mostly old, slightly updated Namco arcade titles.
Those titles include Pac-Man and Dig Dug, games that appeared long ago on machines like the Atari 2600 and Nintendo Entertainment System. They’re still fun, and you know what you’re getting when you choose to download one – but the Games Portal itself is just a quick way to find what Namco has available.
The Games Category app does package a few demo versions of Namco games with it – five, to be exact – which accounts for its long download time. Fans searching for old Namco games are in luck, because Pac-Man and Dig Dug are among the demo titles. It’s nice to get five lite-version games all at once, but none lasts longer than about five minutes.
There are two very specific purposes for downloading the Namco Games Portal – you want to play the very first level of Pac-Man, or you want to find and download Namco games without looking them up individually. Unless you fall into these two categories, don’t bother.
